Applying Quality Management in Healthcare: A Systems Approach

Quality management is a complex process, especially in healthcare. Managers in today's environment need more than just an understanding of the historical concepts of quality. They need to understand how to achieve quality within the structure and relationships of the complex system of a healthcare organization.

In this new third edition, Kelly has enhanced the content to promote an understanding of systems thinking in health services organizations. While still providing readers with the foundational concepts of quality management, she instructs readers on the system implications of understanding stakeholders and the role of policy, establishing goals in complex systems, improving and managing process change, performance measurement, and teamwork. Readers learn how to think critically using new frameworks, approaches, and tools and are given real-life examples and case studies to practice these skills.

This edition features new and enhanced material, including:

• Alternative assumptions to traditional quality management tools and techniques
• An expanded Practice Lab with which readers can exercise newly learned quality techniques
• A guide to using the CMS and Joint Commission quality indicators to improve systems of care
• Additional case studies and exercises designed to individualize applications in the student's own practice setting